


A Strange New World

by atop_gray_clouds



Category: Captain America (2011), Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-08 16:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atop_gray_clouds/pseuds/atop_gray_clouds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <a href="http://capkink.livejournal.com/1973.html?thread=2813621#t2813621">Prompt</a>
</p><p>Steve feels very alone in the 21st century, and everyone is too in awe of him to touch him casually, leaving him touch-starved; meanwhile, in comes Darcy Lewis, who thinks nothing of it. Steve can't get enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Strange New World

**Author's Note:**

> This is version 2.0.  
> Version 1.0 can be found as an [anonymous fill at the capkink meme](http://capkink.livejournal.com/1973.html?thread=2827445#t2827445).

_Steve thought he was familiar with pain. His various illnesses, injuries, and tendency to get himself beaten up in alleys and parking lots had ensured pain was no stranger. But this was something new and unexpected.  
Steve loses the battle to remain stoic. Over the sound of his own screams, he hears shouts of “Shut it down!”  
“No!” he screams in response. “I can still do this!”_

_Steve wouldn’t go so far as to wish himself back. But still, he misses people reacting to Steve Rogers, whether they sling an arm around his shoulders and ruffle his hair or beat him up in an alley. These days, it seems like everyone he meets is in awe of Captain America. And if they manage to overcome their awe, they start thinking of ways to use him._

_“I’d hate to step on your—”  
A shock, and then cold nothing, until confusion and fear._

“I had a date,” Steve says as he looks around at this strange, unrecognizable city.  
“Let’s get you back inside, Captain,” Fury says. He holds out one arm, and Steve automatically turns toward the gesture. Fury simply shepherds him off the street without so much as a friendly hand on his shoulder.

Back inside, Steve tries to ask a question, but he can’t quite string the words together, and isn’t even sure what he wants to know first. _Where am I, who are you, what happened, how did I get here, why am I not drowned and frozen?_ He settles for saying, “What?”  
Director Fury looks at him expressionlessly. “Let’s get somewhere where we can sit down and talk, Captain.” Again, Steve follows. They walk through several hallways, and Steve is half-aware of people whispering.  
At the end of one hallway, an armed, uniformed, and very serious-looking guard stands before a door. Fury holds out an ID card. The guard takes it and flips through a sheaf of papers. “You’re good to go, Director,” she says.  
Fury strides through the door. Steve follows and nods to the woman. WALTERS, the name tag on her shirt reads. She looks at him, slightly wide-eyed.  
Behind the door, there is a room with a table and two chairs, and a large mirror filling one wall. Fury points to the furniture. “Have a seat, Captain.”  
Steve sits down and folds his hands on his lap, trying to keep himself steady. Fury pulls out the chair opposite Steve. “Here’s your situation, Captain, . . .”

By the time Fury stops talking, Steve is ready to believe that he hasn’t fallen into the hands of a new Hydra project. He can’t think of a reason why they’d lie to him about it being seventy years later, so he’s tentatively accepting that it is, but the fact hasn’t sunk it yet.  
Fury leaves him in the company of a young man with dark hair. He introduces himself with an enthusiastic handshake. “I’m Agent Morris. And may I say, Captain America, it’s truly an honor to meet you.”  
Steve tries to return the handshake politely. “It’s just Rogers, please. Steve Rogers.”  
“Of course, Captain. Now, I’m supposed to show you around the facility, get you oriented, you know.” He leads the way out of the room, and Steve follows once again. Agent Morris continues talking. “There’s a fully-equipped gymnasium over that way, and a cafeteria on the third floor. Just follow the signs from any stairwell or elevator. The food is decent, but nothing special.”  
Steve notices several people watching him out of an office. “How many people here know who I am?” he asks.  
Agent Morris shrugs. “Technically, you’re classified. But word does get around the building. That’s not the general rule, of course. But you are an—well, this is an unusual situation.”  
He unlocks a door and hands Steve the key. “You’ve been assigned temporary quarters right here. The rooms have been retrofitted to remove some of the more unfamiliar furnishings, so you shouldn’t feel too out-of-place here. Two last things: the cafeteria opens for dinner at five and closes at nine. Second, the doctors want to take a look at you tomorrow morning. Tenth floor.”

Steve wakes up from unsettling dreams, half-afraid, half-hoping that everything since the Stark Expo or his fifth attempt at enlistment or even since the procedure was a dream.  
Or maybe he really is dead, and the previous day was a hallucination in the few seconds of frantic thought before the cold and darkness took him.  
But no. He forces himself to throw off the covers and get up. With nothing better to do, he decides to go straight to the tenth floor.

The medical personnel are all friendly enough, Steve supposes. He can’t say that they’re cold, exactly, but. . . .Professional. Impersonal. They must know his story, but not one makes a comment that’s not strictly related to whatever test they’re running at the time.  
A nurse walks into the room where Steve, dressed only in his shorts, is sitting on a cold metal table. He starts to stand. “No need, Captain,” she says. “This will only take a moment.” Her smile could hang on a string next to the mask she has around her neck, for all it seems a part of her instead of the shapeless green scrubs she wears.  
Steve thinks she could smile like that while holding a blood-soaked bandage over a mortal wound, and her voice, assuring a dying patient that everything will be okay, would be no warmer.  
Her touch does nothing to dispel that fleeting, perhaps uncharitable, image in Steve’s mind. She rubs at a spot on his arm with cold alcohol and injects him with something that prickles sharply. The blue rubber gloves she wears don’t even feel human when they brush across his skin.

Agent Coulson shakes his hand politely, and hastens to express his admiration. Steve isn’t sure what to make of the man’s enthusiasm.  
Coulson makes it easy for him. Steve quickly discovers that here is a man who makes the medical staff look effusive. After that first handshake, Coulson keeps a rigid and highly professional distance, both physically and in conversation.

Tony Stark reserves physical contact for his—for Pepper. Steve isn’t entirely sure what position the lady occupies in Stark’s life. Secretary? Assistant? Boss? Girlfriend?  
He would ask Stark, but the answer to “What position does this extremely attractive woman hold?” would almost certainly be obscene, and Stark finds enough openings for crude jokes without Steve making it _that_ easy for him.

Jane Foster is friendly. She shakes Steve’s hand warmly, and seems genuinely pleased to meet him. But her affections are promised to a Norse god who is trapped in another world, if Steve understands the situation correctly.  
In any case, she spends almost all of her time away in the field. When she’s in the lab, she’s glued to a dozen computers, which Steve still isn’t convinced he’ll ever understand, despite Stark’s frequent explanations. (Steve is beginning to think that the problem isn’t with him; Stark simply can’t reorient his thoughts to account for 70 years of technology that Steve hasn’t experienced.)

Steve begins to feel lonely, which is obviously ridiculous. He’s always listening to or talking with someone, or fighting with someone, when Loki or Stark is around. How can he be lonely when he’s so busy?

Dr. Banner, when he isn’t large, green, and smashing things, is quiet, unassuming, and prefers to keep to himself. He gets along with Stark, which surprises Steve. All things considered, though, Steve thinks it’s better for Stark to have someone who can keep up with him intellectually. Keeps him productively engaged, as opposed to destructively.

When Steve first meets the Black Widow, he thinks she’s intimidating. As he spends more time with her, he still thinks she’s intimidating.  
Once or twice, she offers to spar with him in the gym. She’s very fast, and sometimes manages to land a good hard kick on the back of Steve’s knee, unbalancing him for a few seconds. Despite her almost inhuman speed, Steve still has little trouble pinning her wrists behind her back with one hand, and trapping her legs with his other arm.  
As he’s still holding her above the mats, Hawkeye looks over from where he’s lifting weights and laughs. Natasha offers to spar with him, and he stops laughing. He does accept, though, and Steve watches as the two send each other flipping head over heels.  
After a while, Natasha decides she’s done for now, leaving Clint and Steve. “Whaddya say, Cap?” Clint says. “Think you can take me?”  
Clint is also fast, but in the end, Steve pins him to the mat. “You win,” Clint gasps. Steve steps back and holds out a hand. Clint takes it, and Steve pulls him to his feet. "You’ve got some nice moves, Cap," Clint says. He punches Steve on the arm as he walks off to the showers.

An unexpected meeting with Loki leaves Steve feeling like he’s in a Brooklyn alley, before Bucky shows up, indignant and protective.  
Loki bounces Steve off of a dumpster. And a brick wall. And the underside of a fire escape, which hurts. Falling back to the ground hurts, too, especially when Loki kicks him viciously in the stomach.  
Steve is very glad to see Iron Man skid to a landing just then. Loki steps backward and looks between the other two: Iron Man holding out a hand, ready to blast Loki through the wall behind him—already cracked from Steve slamming into it—and Captain America, lying on the concrete as he struggles to catch his breath. Loki smirks and vanishes.  
Iron Man doesn’t raise his faceplate as he walks over to Steve and helps him up. "You all right?" his metallic voice asks. Steve nods, and Iron Man leaves it at that.  
The SHIELD medical personnel aren’t content with Steve’s protestations that he’ll be just fine in a matter of days. He ends up sitting on a cold metal table, dressed only in his shorts.  
The same nurse comes in, this time with her mask raised over her nose and mouth, making her look less personable than before, if possible.  
She leans over Steve and begins picking bits of cloth and fragments of brick out of shredded skin. Steve turns his head to look at her. There’s two faint lines between the nurse’s eyebrows, but Steve doesn’t think she’s concerned for him, personally. She’s more intent on the job at hand; the rest of the man is secondary.  
Steve fixes his gaze on the blank white wall. He supposes it’s better for a nurse to be able to work without letting her thoughts and feelings get in the way of what needs to be done, but it’s still disconcerting.

Thor arrives. After the initial scuffle, he proves himself freely affectionate. His preferred method of greeting or congratulation is a hearty clap on the shoulder.  
Steve is the only one who doesn’t mind Thor’s enthusiastic greetings. Everyone else contrives to vanish and reappear out of Thor’s reach—privately, Steve is impressed by the Black Widow’s apparent ability to teleport, not that he would ever remark on it—but he never tries to avoid Thor. Maybe it’s because he’s not likely to be accidentally knocked head over heels by the god of thunder.

However, Thor takes a more permissive view of Loki than Steve can afford to. That should be enough to make Steve suspicious, or at least a little impatient.  
He can’t stop himself from warming to someone who’s so effusive, though.

During the battle with Loki’s army, Thor extends a hand and helps Steve back to his feet. There’s genuine concern in his eyes, and if it weren’t for the pressing matters at hand, Steve would be touched that someone is worrying about _him_ , not their patient, not their superhero.

After the battle and the cleanup, Steve is left feeling adrift once again. Everyone else has a whole life, however unconventional, in this time period. He doesn’t.  
He won’t let himself wish Loki back for a single second, but still. The camaraderie was welcome.

Later, Fury takes a few minutes out of his schedule to inform Steve that he’s found someone to help him get used to modern times. “After all, we’ve been pretty busy lately. Now that we have the leisure, you should get caught up. This is Ms. Lewis. She’s worked with SHIELD before, and is eminently qualified to answer any cultural questions you might have.” Fury walked off, leaving Steve alone with Ms. Lewis.  
She looks him up and down and grins. “Hey.”  
Steve holds out a hand and starts to say something like “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Lewis,” but she grabs his hand and starts pulling him down the hallway, talking all the while. “It’s ‘Darcy,’ first of all. And I don’t know what he means by ‘eminently qualified.’ Well, actually I do. My own fault I was hanging out with a physicist. I am eminently _not_ qualified for theoretical physics.”  
Steve decides he likes her.

A few days later, they’re sitting in a café, both reading newspapers. To be slightly more accurate, Steve is reading. Ms. Lewis is alternating between the crossword and the funny pages.  
“Ms. Lewis,” he starts to say, but she picks up the newspaper and smacks him on the side of the head. “Wha—?”  
“Dude,” she says, “it’s Darcy. _Dar-cee._ Okay?”  
Steve forgets what he was going to ask in the first place.

They spend a lot of time together. Steve meets Darcy after class (she’s working on her master’s degree) and they sit and talk, or go to a museum, or walk around various neighborhoods. Darcy casually links her arm through his, except when she’s talking and needs both hands to gesture.  
Sometimes, her more expansive gestures catch Steve in the chest. Darcy doesn’t always notice, and never interrupts herself to say more than ‘oops, sorry’ before continuing to talk and gesture. Steve doesn’t mind.

“Movie night!” Darcy announces gleefully.  
“Will you stay awake this time?”  
“I never fall asleep during movies,” she says loftily.  
“Yes, you do. And you snore,” he says, fighting valiantly to keep a straight face. Darcy laughs and punches him on the shoulder.  
She does fall asleep during the movie, but she doesn’t snore. Mostly because she’s tipped sideways with her head on Steve’s arm. He slowly, carefully readjusts so Darcy is pillowed on his chest for the rest of the movie.  
As usual, she wakes up just in time for the credits. Steve expects her to be embarrassed, but she simply puts a hand on his stomach and pushes herself upright. They say their good-nights at the door, and Darcy stands on tiptoe to hug Steve as he leaves.

They meet after one of Darcy’s classes, planning to go to a modern history museum. The subway station they need is closed for unknown reasons, so they decide to walk to the next. It starts raining, sudden and hard. They take a wrong turn somewhere, and as they try to find they way back, Darcy hops over puddles and complains about new shoes.  
Steve lets her chatter on for a few minutes, then rolls his eyes. He slings Darcy over one shoulder and keeps walking, one arm clamped firmly around her legs to stop her from wriggling.  
“Hey!” Darcy says. “Put me down! I’m not a sack of rice!”  
Steve walks over to the largest puddle he can find and holds Darcy over it. She clings on to him like a koala bear. “No! Jeez! That is not what I meant!”  
Steve sets her down under the overhang of a building, where the sidewalk is relatively dry. “What do you say we forget the museum today and just go watch a movie?” he asks.  
“Sounds good. Have you seen any zombie movies yet?”

Steve waits outside the building where Darcy has a lecture. When she leaves, she greets him with a hug. “I haven’t seen you in ages!” she says by way of explanation for her enthusiasm.  
“Three days,” Steve tells her. Darcy rolls her eyes and hugs him again. Steve laughs and holds out his arm to Darcy. She takes it and starts dragging him down the sidewalk.

Darcy tries to explain the various sub-genres of heavy metal, which is itself a sub-genre of rock music. “See, there’s death metal, speed metal, thrash metal, black metal—”  
“It all sounds like undifferentiated noise to me,” Steve protests.  
“Yeah, that’s what they said about Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. And they also said that Shakespeare’s plays were lowbrow trash for entertaining the serfs.”  
“I don’t think you’re allowed to compare ‘death metal’ and Shakespeare. And the 1812 Overture has cannons in it. That’s not a concert piece; that’s an artillery barrage.”  
“Here, you’ll love this. Listen.” Darcy cranks up the volume on her speakers and Steve claps his hands over his ears to stop the onslaught of undifferentiated noise. Over the ruckus, they can hear someone banging on the ceiling below them.  
Darcy checks her watch. “Oh hey, it’s 2 am. My downstairs neighbors apparently don’t appreciate late-night grindcore. Philistines.”  
“Clearly an individual of distinguishing tastes.” Before Darcy can come up with a suitable retort, Steve makes for the door. “Good night, Darcy.”  
“Night, Steve.”

“I need to go grocery shopping,” Darcy announces after a seminar one day. “If there were mice in my apartment, they’d be starving to death.”  
In the grocery store, Steve can’t stop staring at the variety of unrationed foods that are available. He turns around when Darcy tugs at his sleeve. “Can you get this down for me?”  
He reaches over her head and lifts a carton off a shelf that’s clearly labeled “Ask store personnel for help with items on top shelves.” Steve looks down at Darcy, who is already balancing all manner of boxes, bags, and cartons in her arms. “I can carry this one,” he says.  
“No, really. I can carry my own groceries.” Darcy starts trying to unwrap his fingers from the carton. Steve decides to give up and lets her, after a little while.

They fix dinner together in Darcy’s apartment. The kitchen is small enough that while they aren’t quite squeezing by each other, they do brush elbows.  
Steve looks at the microwave clock to check how long a pot has been boiling, and it’s blinking “12:00.”  
“Darcy? Is the microwave broken?”  
“Nah, I just need to reset the clock. It always does that after a power hit.”  
“But we haven’t had any outages.”  
“Not since the week before last.”  
“And you haven’t reset it since?”  
“Guess not.”  
Steve grabs Darcy’s shoulders and pushes her toward the microwave. “Fix it. Two weeks is too long.”  
“Hey, careful!” Darcy is holding a spoon with brownie batter on it. Steve takes it from her. “Here, let me hold that for you.”  
By the time Darcy has reset the clock, Steve has licked off the spoon. Darcy snatches it back “I was using that!”  
“Are you sure we have to bake those?” Steve asks.

A narrow wall separates the sidewalk from the lawn next to it. Darcy hops up and starts playing balancing act, steadying herself with a hand on Steve’s shoulder.  
The sidewalk slopes down to the end of the block, but the top of the wall remains level, leaving Darcy standing several feet above the cement. “Help me down?” she asks.  
“I was thinking of leaving you up there, actually,” Steve says. Darcy laughs at him as he reaches up and wraps both hands around her waist to lift her down. On the ground, she hooks her arm through his again.

Steve gets a text message from Darcy, telling him to meet her at a café a few blocks away from SHIELD’s building. When he arrives, she has her laptop on the table and is fuming at the screen. “I can’t believe that guy!”  
“What happened?”  
“Director Fury. He was all like, ‘Oh, and I took the liberty of removing a photo you shouldn’t have posted in the first place. We don’t need to advertise the whereabouts of—’ ”  
“What photo?”  
“Remember, I took a picture of you trying to figure out what all the things in the Apple store’s display window were. And then I posted it on Facebook, and Fury took it down without even talking to me first, and just how did he get my password?”  
“I still don’t quite understand what an iPad is,” Steve says.  
“It fills a weird corner of the market,” Darcy says as she types with unnecessary vigor. “There. New password. Furystickupass.”  
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Director Fury is on a short fuse lately.”  
“What now? Stark making headlines again? The man is a rolling PR disaster.”  
“He is,” Steve agrees.  
“Was his father that much of an asshat?”  
Steve considers before replying. “Well, in some ways, Tony Stark is a bit . . . more than Howard Stark ever was.”  
“ ‘A bit more’? That’s possibly the most diplomatic description of the man that I’ve ever heard. But come on now. You’ve got to tell me. Do you think Tony Stark is an asshat?”  
“I don’t think I can . . . I mean, I shouldn’t—”  
“What, because you’re Captain America?”  
Before Steve can think of what to say to that, Darcy keeps talking. “Dude, you’re allowed to just be a dude, ya know? Like, you can have opinions about people. Maybe don’t buy a TV spot, though.” She starts gesturing wildly. “ ‘Tony Stark is a total jackass. I, Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, approve this message.’ If you did that, Fury would blow a gasket.”  
In spite of himself, Steve is laughing now.

Darcy’s cellphone rings in the middle of one movie. She reaches one hand out from under the blankets—why she needed a fuzzy blanket to stay warm during a movie was something Steve suspected he’d never figure out—and gropes around on the end table. “Shoot, left it in the kitchen. Don’t pause; I’ve seen this like eight times.”  
She hops up and trips over the blanket. “I’m okay!” she calls back as she races toward the kitchen. Steve hears her answer the phone. “Hi, it’s Darcy. What’s up?”  
There’s a long pause before Darcy speaks again. “Oh, no. How did you get this number? I told you—”  
She breaks off, and the tone of her voice makes Steve get up and start toward the kitchen, with the sudden awful feeling that something might be very badly wrong; he just doesn’t know what quite yet.  
In the kitchen, Darcy is leaning forward over the counter, with her head resting against a cupboard. She doesn’t hear Steve behind her, and he’s not sure whether to ask her if everything is all right or to continue eavesdropping.  
Darcy starts talking again, and sounds more frustrated than upset, so Steve decides, with a feeling of relief, to keep quiet for now. “Look, jerkoff, I broke up with you back when we were undergrads.” She pauses for a couple of seconds. “No, because you were completely lacking in redeeming qualities. It’s over. Period. Done. The end. Make like a tree.”  
She sets the cellphone down on the counter and braces herself with both hands on the white laminate edge. Steve clears his throat. “Darcy? Is everything all right?”  
“Yeah, just an ex of mine. We dated until I realized that certain species of slime mold were better company.”  
“Is he a problem? Because I could beat him up in a parking lot if it’s necessary.”  
Darcy turns around and grins at him. “Yeah, I bet Fury really wants to see that on the front page of every newspaper in the state.”  
“I could try to talk Stark into beating the guy up in a parking lot. You never know. He might agree.”  
“Or maybe the Black Widow. Poor guy would never know what hit him.”  
Steve does talk to Stark, but only to ask if there’s a way to fix a cellphone so it can’t receive calls from a certain number. Stark gets the whole story out of Steve, and works his magic so the next time the slime mold tries to call Darcy, his cell phone will replace his contact list with the numbers for several psychic hotlines.  
Given Stark’s capabilities, sense of humor, and, most importantly, sense of restraint (or lack thereof), Steve feels this is a perfectly acceptable solution.  
And Darcy never hears from the slime mold ex-boyfriend again.

After all the times he’s teased Darcy about the sixth sense that causes her to wake up for the credits, but no earlier, Steve drifts off during a movie. He’s in a nightmare world where a twisted bit of metal was sticking in his side because he tried to get across the train car. He wakes up to something still jabbing him in the ribs. “Wake up!” Darcy’s saying. “It’s just a nightmare.”  
Steve sits up and looks around the room, half-expecting to see a shattered wall revealing a snowy gorge. “Oh, honey,” Darcy says. She pulls him into her arms, and they sit on the couch for a long time, with Steve listening to Darcy’s heartbeat and her quiet humming. Neither of them reaches for the remote to play the movie.


End file.
